


House on a Hill

by le_chat_vilain



Series: Sins of the Father [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Family, Werewolf!Draco
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 17:31:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4634028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/le_chat_vilain/pseuds/le_chat_vilain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Malfoys brace themselves for the handing down of Lucius' punishment for failing to retrieve the prophecy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	House on a Hill

 

“Lucius, please, you can’t let him do this! He is our only child!” his mother begged. She knew it was in vain, for the Dark Lord always got his way, one way or another, but the love she bore for her son spurred her to fight an unwinnable battle. Never would it be said that Narcissa Malfoy didn’t love her family.

 

“One job, Narcissa, I had one job and I failed him. We should count ourselves lucky we live,” his father countered. While his point was valid, she had one that was more so.

 

“Yes, Lucius, you did have one job: protect your family!” she cried, before shooting him a look that was the most devastating blend of fury, sadness, and disappointment ever to play across a human face. Lucius’ heart was heavy with the weight of knowing how incredibly right his wife was, and though he did not let it show, it would come to plague his conscience with unyielding tenacity until his dying day.

 

“Do you have any idea what this will mean for him? For all of us? What it will make him? You know how he feels about them, you know what that will mean once this is all over,” she spat. “Are you ready to live with that Lucius? Lucius, look at me. Look at me you coward!”

 

He couldn’t. She was right, every word of what she said, right down to her scathing criticism of his lack of constitution, everything was correct. Correct and yet completely inconsequential, for none of it altered the events that took place in the Ministry, and none of it could change their fates now.

 

Draco sat slumped against the other side of the wall, listening to his parents quarrel as the seeds of terror slowly germinated in his stomach. He drew his knees to his chest and let his head flop back against the charcoal wallpaper as tears welled in his eyes and his lips began to tremble.

 

What was he going to do to him? What could the Dark Lord do that could be worse than death? Of course he had heard the stories, but surely they were just stories, right? Then he heard the whoosh of three people apparating into the next room, and the harrowing sound of his mother begging “no.”

 

“Lucius, Narcissa,” the Dark Lord greeted them in that tone that could strike fear into the heart of Godric Gryffindor himself. Draco’s skin crawled at the sound and he did his best to silence the sob clawing it’s way up his throat.

 

“Oh, Draco!” he heard his aunt beckon with a cackle.

 

“No, Bella, please sister! Blood of my blood and flesh of my flesh, surely there must be another way?” Narcissa begged, her voice cracking as she made a last ditch effort to help him.

 

“I’m here, auntie Bella,” Draco whispered as he slowly stepped out of the dark doorway and into the dimly lit dining room. If this was to be his fate, he would face it as a man, show his mother strength where his father had failed her. He would not let her suffer by showing her the fear in his eyes, and he would ease his father’s surely restless heart with his willingness to sacrifice for their family; he would make them proud, even if it was the last thing he ever did.

 

Bellatrix turned her wild eyed smile on him and greeted him with the embrace of her steely little fingers on his arms, her lips planting a chaste kiss on his cheek. The Dark Lord simply nodded at him with a strange air of approval that sent a shiver down his spine. The third man remained with his back turned, but Draco had heard stories of the man with the unruly grey hair and what he was, what he did to children.

 

“Draco…” his father began, “this is Fenrir Greyback, he’s…he’s here to give you something.”

 

_Don’t cry, don’t let them see you cry…_

 

Greyback finally turned to face him, and all the stories in the world could not have prepared Draco for the monstrosity before him. It was not the beast like hair, or the grimy elongated incisors that terrified him the most, it was the deranged, primitive savagery in his deep set blue eyes. To say that the man had an odour about him would also be a gross understatement; the stench of earth, copper, and rot that assaulted Draco’s nostrils made the boy’s stomach churn.

 

“Not to rush this but we are under certain temporal restraints, Fenrir, Lucius,” the Dark Lord pointed out. Draco turned his eyes to his parents, wordlessly pleading for them to help even though he knew they couldn’t. His father placed an arm around his mother’s back and gave him a nod, a silent apology written all over the older Malfoy’s face. Draco returned it and stepped forward to take the punishment for his father’s failure.

 

“Won’t lie, lad, this is gunna hurt,” the man warned with a sinister grin that made the hair on the back of the boy’s neck stand to attention. Draco’s heart began to thump in his chest and he could feel the sweat causing his palms to grow slick. With a wave of her wand, Bellatrix threw the heavy velvet curtains open. Uninhibited by clouds on this unnaturally clear night, the light of the newly risen full moon shone down on Fenrir Greyback.

 

The sight that followed was an ungodly spectacle; the sound of bones crunching and morphing, hands becoming claws, and deep grey fur sprouting from all over his body. The robe he wore lay in tatters on the floor as the beast tilted its head back and let out a bone-chilling howl that echoed through the stone halls with ghastly refrain. When it locked the gaze of its orb like eyes onto him, the world seemed to fall away and all Draco could hear was a high pitched ringing as the grey blur charged forward.

 

Somewhere in the ensuing chaos, he heard only three other things: a blood curdling snarl, a strangled wail, and the word “Imperio.” Everything else was sucked into the swirling vortex of blinding pain that followed. The ringing continued as he dropped to his knees and then the marble floor, writhing in agony. His skin blistered and his bones felt as though they were ablaze, like they had turned to dragon fire itself. The last thing he remembered was the hazy image of his mother dragging him into her arms and clutching him to her breast as he convulsed and shrieked.

 

“Draco! My boy…it’s alright, it’s going to be alright…”

 

Draco woke several days later to the gentle caress of his mother’s hand on his temple. There was a lingering foulness in the air however, and what he at first thought were tears of joy streaming from her eyes turned out to be the opposite, though he couldn’t fathom why right away.

 

“Mother,” he murmured and reached his uninjured arm up around her neck and pulled her down to hug her to his chest. “I’m…alive.”

 

“Oh, darling, my precious darling,” she cooed, her voice punctuated with the cracking of subdued sobs. “For the first time in my life, I fear I wish you weren’t.”

 

She sat upright on the edge of his bed as he gathered the strength to sit up himself. The pity and fear in her eyes told him all he needed to know.

 

“This isn’t all is it?” he asked, already dreading the answer out of unwavering certainty that he knew what it was.

 

“Son, this is only just the beginning.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> No warnings for this one apart from it might hurt your soul a little! This is based on the fan theory that Draco was actually turned werewolf between books five and six. There is more to come, I just felt this was the best place to cut the chapter and leave you all hanging for a while because you all know what a fan of delayed gratification I am.


End file.
